Correspondence: GEN 4:12, 5:16; Judge/Adversary; 2CO 13:5; Church in Tabernacle

Genesis 4:13; Genesis 5:16  •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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Question: Does not the marginal reading of Genesis 4:1313And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. (Genesis 4:13) suggest the idea that Cain was really sorry for his sin? and yet in 5:16 we read that he “went out from the presence of the Lord.”
Answer: Whatever inference we might draw from Cain’s apparent sorrow when he hears of his punishment, it is evident that the sorrow soon passed away, for only in a few verses lower we find him building his city, and making himself thoroughly comfortable away from God.
Answer: God was then pleading with His people by His Son; but if they refused to hear Him, He would judge them. Hence He is both judge and adversary.
Answer: We are to understand that he never was saved, but not that he was lost for the purpose of fulfilling Scripture. “That the Scripture might be fulfilled,” should be read in parenthesis.
Question: How can we examine and prove ourselves whether we be in the faith? (2 Cor. 13:55Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (2 Corinthians 13:5)) If we believe in Christ, is there any doubt of it?
Answer: Verse 4 is a parenthesis, and the reason they were to examine themselves is given in the first part of verse 3. There was no doubt at all as to their being in the faith, but inasmuch as they were the seals of the apostle’s ministry, their being in the faith would be a proof that God had spoken to them by him. He who knows himself to be saved, does not doubt that the message that reached his soul was of God.
Question: What will God use the New Earth for?
Answer: It will be the habitat of all who are living on the earth at the close of the 9th verse of Revelation 20. All distinction between Jew and Gentile ceases with the introduction of the new earth. “The tabernacle of God is with men,” not Jews or Gentiles.
Question: Will the Church dwell on the New Earth?
Question: Will the Church be included in “The tabernacle of God is with men?”
Question: Does God, in the Old Testament, mean “Father” or “Son”?
Answer: God, in the Old Testament, means neither Father nor Son specially, but the triune God. There is abundant evidence, however, that “LORD,” or “Jehovah,” means the One whom we know as Christ the Son.